


bad dracula

by dykeforseulgi



Series: bad dracula [1]
Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Vampires, soft vampire seulgi, stern and mysterious vampire slayer irene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-06-03 12:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19464268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dykeforseulgi/pseuds/dykeforseulgi
Summary: seulgi is an art history professor who just so happens to also be a vampire. irene is a very talented vampire slayer. but, when irene gets assigned seulgi, she realizes she's not so good at her job as she thought she was.





	1. letting in a draft

It was cold, but Seulgi had a fire burning within her, heating her up from the inside out. She could sense what was coming. She could feel Irene, feel her impending presence. As much as she was dreading it, Seulgi knew she could do nothing to stop it. She opens the french window by her desk in her office, welcoming in the brisk air to cool her down. The window will serve as a welcome for something, or someone, else, too. But Seulgi knows that already.

She’s hoping to keep it rather short tonight. Her students had just turned in their latest papers that day, all hand-written, and she’d promised to have them graded before the weekend was over. Despite living her life alone outside of school walls, Seulgi wasn’t free of distraction. Irene showed up in her life a short three months ago, but it was beginning to feel like forever to her. It was fun at first. It’d been a while since she’d had her life threatened, it almost made her feel alive again. Almost. 

Now, it was just getting boring. The same old thing, day in, day out. She’d occasionally get a break, but it wasn’t often. Seulgi spent far too much time wondering why Irene gave her those breaks. Was it to keep her on her toes? Make her let her guard down? Did she simply just have other business to attend to? Seulgi didn’t know. 

She didn’t know much about Irene at all, really. Their meetings were short, and Irene wasn’t exactly good company. It took Seulgi a while to even learn her name, and once she did, it took her even longer to get used to. Irene felt so other compared to her, more so than most humans. She’d never really thought about Irene having a name, having a life. To her, she was just some girl who tried to kill her on the daily, nothing more, nothing less. After their altercation had ended, Seulgi sat on her sofa, exhausted. She sat for a moment, before remembering her name. Irene. She liked the way it sounded coming out of her mouth. So, she sat there, alone, repeating the assassin’s name with different inflections.

Seulgi was surprised. Despite sensing her presence, it took Irene longer than usual to arrive. She’d wondered for a moment if she’d been wrong, so used to Irene’s visits that her instincts had fooled her. But, just as she began to really entertain this thought, a sudden rush of wind came through that open window, blowing some of her papers around the room. 

“I’d really rather not do this tonight, if you don’t mind,” Seulgi said, not looking up from the essay she had currently been correcting.

Irene hadn’t yet entered Seulgi’s office. She was crouched down, prowling outside the window Seulgi had left open for her. It was dark, only Seulgi being illuminated by a small lamp on the desk before her. All you could see of Irene was her general shape, and her bright, intoxicating eyes. Oh and, of course, the blade she was holding in her hand. 

The first time Irene attacked Seulgi, Seulgi had been surprised to see the blade. It was unconventional. A wooden stake was expected, but a blade? A blade couldn’t do anything to Seulgi. Or so she thought. Irene had skillfully crafted this blade, using an old metal cross, and infusing holy water throughout the melding process. Although not a traditional weapon, it certainly worked. Not on Seulgi though, not yet.

“You shouldn’t leave your windows open on a cold night, Seulgi…” Irene breathed, beginning to crawl down from the window sill and into Seulgi’s dark office. “You might let in a draft.”

“Irene, seriously, I’m not in the mood for this. I have a mountain of papers to grade, and-”

“Papers?” 

“Yeah,” Seulgi answered, confused. She had just figured Irene knew all there was to know about her. “I’m a teacher. A professor, actually.”

Irene didn’t reply. She just stood, looming over Seulgi’s desk, hands resting on the edge, propping her up. The blade was now before them both, at rest.

“You know, I kind of expected someone who has tried to take my life on more than one occasion to know more about me. Common courtesy.”

“They give me a name and an address. That’s it,” Irene said coldly.

“Who’s ‘they’?”

By now Irene had picked up her blade and made her way back to the window sill. She wasn’t quite ready to leave yet, so she sat down, fiddling with the weapon in her hands. “What do you teach?”

Seulgi hadn’t really been expecting to get an answer out of her, so she moved on with a sigh. “Art history.”

Irene nods, not necessarily in approval, more so just a confirmation that she’d heard Seulgi, that she was listening, despite her eyes drifting along the dark room. 

“I have another question for you. Not as incriminating as the last, though. Just something I’m curious about,” Seulgi adds.

Irene fills the room with silence again, but drags her wandering eyes over to Seulgi as a way to let her know to continue. 

“Do they, whoever they are, know?”

“Know what?”

“Know that you haven’t killed me yet. That it’s been three months. Three long, long months, and you still haven’t taken me out yet?”

Irene pauses, unsure whether to answer her truthfully, or go out that window behind her while she’s still ahead. She looked away for a moment, trying to make her decision, then looks back at Seulgi. Seulgi was a nice change of pace for Irene. Not her usual, run of the mill job. Especially not tonight. She remained warm and somewhat inviting, despite the lack of actual warmth within her body and her growing boredom with the incessant assassination attempts. Irene was breaking every rule, whether one given to her or one she made for herself. 

Irene had to find a way to not care about the lives she was taking. So she shut off any way for her to care. She implanted this idea in her head about how terrible vampires are. That they’re all worthless killers, nothing more, nothing less. While, yes, she was only given a simple name and an address, Irene wouldn’t want any more than that. If she was given more, she wouldn’t be able to shut it off anymore. She’d have to care about the lives she was taking. Even if they were undead lives. Irene wasn’t a heartless person. She really wasn’t. But she didn’t want Seulgi, or anyone else for that matter, to catch wind of that. 

Her silence continued, and just as Seulgi began to give up hope on her like she had when she came in that night, she answered Seulgi’s inquiry. “No. I value my job. And my life, to a degree, I suppose. And I think both would be at risk if they knew.” 

Seulgi is able to detect a certain sadness in Irene’s voice. It’s the first time Seulgi thinks she’s been able to see a real emotion in Irene. She sounds hopeless, defeated. She sympathizes with the girl opposite of her, knowing exactly how that feels. Seulgi decides not to press on the subject any further, feeling grateful for the little bit of information Irene had granted her in the first place. 

“Well,” Seulgi begins, standing up from her desk chair, “if I’m not gonna get any more work done tonight, I might as well make us something to drink, yeah?”

Seulgi turns around for a moment, and adding a quick, “How do you take your tea, Irene?” 

When Seulgi turns back, though, she’s alone once again in her small, empty office, the window still agape with the wind rushing in once more, and gone again just as quickly as it came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is based off a drawing i did and i went A Lil Wild coming up w the backstory and ended up here. thanks to chay and lars for helping me hehe  
> twitter: posephdameron


	2. hypotheticals

After that night, Seulgi’s life is empty again. Irene’s unexplained breaks prior to then had never been more than a week or so. This time was different, though. The wind was gone. For that whole month, nothing but still air. The fire that Irene lit inside Seulgi had died out, too. It didn’t happen all at once. It was slow, the flame getting dimmer and dimmer until every last ember had burnt out. 

Seulgi didn’t understand why she felt the way she did. She knew that Irene made her feel alive, but this was bordering on ridiculous, she thought. Irene’s sudden absence caused her to experience feelings she hadn’t felt in a long time. Her wonderings about the breaks were different now than they had been. Now she was concerned with what happened to Irene. She was used to a week, but a month? By then, she wasn’t sure Irene would ever come back. And her mind was growing more and more curious with what had happened to Irene.

Was it purposeful? Did she stop showing up because she’d decided to let Seulgi live? Because that slight twinge of sadness caught in her throat that night was an indication of her, who she was, and that she didn’t truly want to hurt Seulgi, or anyone? That this was something she just had to do, and she’d reached her limit? Seulgi knew this was wishful thinking. It was the more positive reasoning for why, after being so committed, she would suddenly give up. 

Seulgi’s other lines of thinking weren’t as lighthearted as last. She wondered if the “they” she spoke of found out about her failures in killing Seulgi. Maybe she was dead now, by the hands of her employers. Or perhaps by the hands of a fellow vampire that Irene had tried to slay in her times away from Seulgi. The latter seemed slightly more unrealistic to her. She didn’t know much about Irene, but she did know she was good at what she did. Irene was frustrated with her shortcomings when it came to Seulgi. She didn’t understand why her, why this one vampire she couldn’t quite get her grip on. 

Irene had remarked to herself that Seulgi had seemed to look rather harmless upon their first meeting. Irene worked at night, and it was into the wee hours of the morning by the time she had made her way to her next stop. She scoped the house out, looking for a good point of entry, a plan of attack. She wasn’t sure if her next victim would be awake or not, seeing as it was now 3 AM on a Tuesday. There was a flickering light coming from what appeared to be the living room, and Irene took a look inside. What she saw was a tired Seulgi, bundled up in a big robe and blankets around her on her couch. She had her hair up, her bangs held back by a soft headband with small bear ears perched on the top. Her eyes were drooping, yet still fixated on the television before her. Irene almost felt bad about interrupting the girl and her impending slumber, but not enough to stop her. Nonetheless, it was unusual for Irene to feel anything but apathy during one of her frequent expeditions.

Seulgi had also wondered if Irene had turned herself in. The end result would most likely be the same as if she’d been found out, but with different intentions. Although Seulgi knew in her heart of hearts that this was outlandish, it was the middleman of her wonderings. Irene would have done something rooted in her emotions, perhaps emotions towards Seulgi, yet still met her match with her employers, probably dead in a ditch somewhere.

Irene turning herself could have meant many things, Seulgi thought. She could’ve done it out of guilt. Maybe guilt caused by Seulgi. Irene could’ve felt bad for her, taken pity on her, realized that maybe not all vampires are as bad as she thinks. Maybe the guilt came from feeling bad about lying to her employers. This seemed outside the realm of possibility, at least to Seulgi. Irene cared about her job, but she was still self-serving. She didn’t, and wouldn’t, do something just because someone told her to. 

Another possibility that may have solved the riddle of Irene turning herself in was that Irene was just so tired. Tired of shutting herself off, of becoming something she wasn’t, someone she didn’t recognize. She didn’t want to do it anymore, whether that be her duties, or being alive. Based on what she’d admitted to Seulgi, either her job or her life was on the line because of her inability to kill Seulgi. If she confessed, she went into it knowing she’d be losing one of two things. Maybe this is what Irene wanted. A way out. Maybe this, maybe Seulgi, was her way out, one way or another. 

Perhaps nothing drastic had happened at all. Seulgi knew Irene’s bosses were none the wiser about the two women’s current predicament. Irene could’ve left whenever she wanted. Seulgi wasn’t a prominent figure by any means. She could continue to slip under their radar. This fact left another question in Seulgi’s mind. Why did Irene stay? She could see Irene sticking around for a while, trying to get her job done, even if her employers thought she already had. Maybe just for the satisfaction alone. But three months was a considerable amount of time. Especially when most weeks it was a nightly visit. So what compelled Irene to stick around for so long, if she could’ve left high and dry so long ago, hypothetically with no consequences aside from a bruised ego? Was that it? Just her ego? 

At the end of the day, this was all just speculation. Just Seulgi letting her mind get away from her, as she’d been known to do, as her students had made fun of her for. Seulgi had an active imagination, and she wasn’t hesitant to let that imagination out, whether it be through her art or her rampant rants in the middle of class when she thought of something that was just too interesting, too intriguing, to let go of. Active imagination or not, Seulgi wished she’d knew what became of Irene. She wanted a reason why she was alone again. Oh, great, Seulgi thought. I’m finally free from being berated by a five foot tall assassin on the daily and I’m upset about it because I’m lonely. She dismissed her thoughts and continued her work. 

Irene stayed away for a couple more weeks. Seulgi spent time every day thinking of her, in lieu of their near daily, near deadly visits. Just as Irene had wondered why Seulgi was the one she couldn’t manage to kill, Seulgi wondered why Irene was the one she couldn’t get out of her mind. Seulgi should be glad, she can finally get some work done. She was bored of it before, she really was. The cat and mouse game had gotten old. She was tired of the constant attempts to take away her life. But maybe she wasn’t yet tired of the perpetrator. 

Seulgi was alone that night, as she usually was, sitting at the bar in her kitchen, trying and failing to get some work done. Although her mind ran with thoughts of the other girl, she’d given up by now on seeing Irene again. She was an elusive being, and Seulgi would have no way to find her unless Irene came to her herself. Seulgi couldn’t focus on her work, as was becoming a common issue since the sudden omission. She held her head in her hands, hating the situation she was in, the feelings she felt. In the midst of her self-pity session, she felt a familiar warmth within her.

She almost didn’t believe it, thinking her mind was playing tricks on her. She’d wanted, wished, that Irene would return, and with Irene, the warmth she unknowingly brought to her. But, once Irene was physically there, even without making a sound, Seulgi knew it was her. There was no denying it at that point. The wind hadn’t even been there to support her former hypothesis, but she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Irene was behind her. Seulgi didn’t turn around to confirm it, she didn’t need to. Knowing what she knows about Irene, she’d make her presence known. 

Just as she’d finished that thought, Irene had moved forward, now with arms on either side of Seulgi, supporting herself on the table beneath them both. She moved her head down slightly to meet Seulgi’s ear, whispering, “Miss me?”

Shivers went down Seulgi’s spine at the inquiry. She turned her head to look at the woman that was just a tad too close for comfort at the moment. Seulgi wasn’t sure of what her plan was, what she would say, what she would do, and even if she’d wanted to attempt to come up with some sort of plan, as soon as she laid eyes on Irene, her mind went blank. She didn’t have the time, or the headspace, to figure anything out.

Something took over her. No coherent thought was taking place in that head of hers, all she saw, all she could focus on, was Irene. She felt consumed by her, completely and totally. The warmth grew stronger, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. Seulgi was unable to sink back into her body, her mind, before her lips were on Irene’s. It was her doing, Irene simply accepting the situation, but not being a perpetrator as she usually was. It lasted longer than either of them had expected, though, then again, neither of them had anticipated this at all. 

Once they part, Irene stays close to Seulgi, to her lips, and right as Irene is about to speak, Seulgi wakes up to the sound of her alarm. She lets out a breathy, defeated laugh. This whole thing is getting to her more than she ever thought. She goes through her day in a daze, unable to focus. It’s impossible to be productive when she’s thinking of Irene and her lips. 

She feels stupid. She can’t believe she’s letting this affect her as much as it is. Seulgi tries to push Irene out her mind later that night, to no avail. She’s sitting where she had been in the dream, and was having what almost felt like deja vu. She nearly felt like she was outside of her body. The heat was there, but stronger than it had ever been. She held her head in her hands, wondering if she was going insane.

As she removed her hands from over her eyes, she jumped at the sight of Irene standing before her. “Jesus Christ, Irene, you scared me half to death.”

“Isn’t that a phrase that should be used by people who, you know, have an actual heartbeat?” 

Seulgi let out a light chuckle in disbelief, hand over her chest, still trying to recover from the scare. 

Irene walked a few steps forward and leaned down, now mere inches from Seulgi’s face, on the opposite side of the kitchen island. Slowly, looking deep into Seulgi’s eyes, she whispered, “Miss me?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing is able to escape her prison of a throat. Seulgi’s a very vocal person, letting out her thoughts whenever she sees fit. She’s taken aback by her inability to form coherent words during the long awaited reunion that she’d thought about, fantasized about, even dreamed of, for these past six weeks. For someone who had wanted this as badly as she had, she wasn’t doing so great of a job expressing that to Irene. 

It doesn’t help that the positions they’re in are giving her flashbacks to the night she’d last seen Irene, and the timing of the whole event was less than ideal after the dream she’d had the night before. Seulgi feels frozen, staring into the girl in front of her, yet somehow looking past her, still unable to focus. 

Irene moved even lower, going from resting her palms on the cool surface of the bar, to having her elbows down and placing her head on her balled up fists. “Cat got your tongue, huh?”

Seulgi still doesn’t respond, leaving the room silent for a moment longer. The devastatingly intense eye contact the two are making is broken when Irene moves away from the counter. Irene sighs, and says, “Well, if you’d prefer, I can go now. Let you get back to whatever it was you were doing,” her sentence still full of breath on the coattails of her exhale.

She turns the corner around the kitchen island, and walks past Seulgi. Seulgi isn’t processing anything that’s happening fast enough to match Irene. It takes her a moment to fully understand what had just been said to her, Irene already a ways away from her now. Although Seulgi desperately wants Irene to stay, to relish in the heat she brought with her for at least a moment longer, she wasn’t certain that objection was the way to go. Irene wasn’t one to obey, and Seulgi knew her orders wouldn’t be received any differently. 

“Why?” Seulgi manages to blurt out, without turning around.

Irene stops in her tracks, turning around and saying, “You certainly have a way with words. Especially when it comes to your questions.”

“Why did you leave?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had written two endings and didn't know which to use so i said Fuck It I'll Use Both  
> twitter: posephdameron


	3. objection

“My life doesn’t revolve around you, Seulgi,” Irene, who had previously stopped in her tracks, continued to walk out of Seulgi’s home.

Everything is still moving in slow motion for Seulgi, processing everything at a snail’s pace. She hears the front door click open, an unusual form of exit for someone who so frequently breaks into her house. Seulgi rushes to stop her, no longer caring about Irene’s defiance towards outright objection. She grabs her arm, pulling her away from the door and promptly slamming her against the adjacent wall.

“You don’t get to do that. You can’t just come in here, into my home, spend as much time with me as you have, and then just pick up and leave whenever you feel like,” Seulgi says, not quite yelling, but getting loud enough to get her point across. After she initially pushed Irene into the wall, she let go, only keeping an arm against the wall near Irene’s head. She did this purposefully, not wanting to make Irene feel trapped, but hoping she would stay to hear her out.

“Didn’t think you cared.”

“Really, Irene? Seriously? Maybe you’ve never kept anyone alive long enough to care about you, but you did with me. Did you really think that after all this time, all those sleepless nights, I wouldn’t care? That I wouldn’t think about you when you’re not around? When you’ve suddenly decided to just up and leave with no consideration for anyone but yourself?” Seulgi started out with the same tone as before, angry, almost demanding, but as time went on, her voice got softer and quieter to match her softening sentiments. 

Irene stayed silent, staring into Seulgi’s eyes, mere inches away from her. She knew she could leave, she knew that Seulgi left the option open for her. She chose to stay, though. She wanted to. She wanted to hear what Seulgi had to say, knowing Seulgi deserved this moment. 

“Did you ever realize that you leaving as you pleased hurt me? I know I acted like I was bored of you, like I wouldn’t care if it all stopped. But, Jesus Christ, Irene, you can’t be that dense. I know you’re not. I could’ve gotten rid of you whenever I wanted to. You can’t exactly say the same about me, no matter how much you would’ve liked to. But I could have. Easily. I kept you around for a reason. Because I care.” 

At this point, Irene couldn’t make eye contact anymore. She moved her eyes down, away from the woman in front of her. She felt ashamed. She’d figured she had had some sort of affect on Seulgi, but she didn’t know it was to this degree. The whole situation was unprecedented to Irene, especially Seulgi acknowledging that she could’ve taken Irene out if she had wanted to.

Irene had never had anyone she couldn’t kill, she was always a step ahead, always more powerful than her opponent. She’d never thought about the other perspective. She always saw the situation as just a shortcoming of hers, a frustrating challenge to her skills. But now she was able to see that it wasn’t all about her. Seulgi was powerful in her own right, and that played just as much of a part as Irene’s faults. 

“I guess there's a lot I haven’t considered,” Irene thought to herself, still staring at the floor below her, unable to have the courage to look Seulgi in the face and admit her wrongs.

“I thought about you all the time when you were gone, especially this time. Sometimes, pretty much all the time if I was being honest, you would be all I could think about,” Seulgi admitted, letting out a light laugh before continuing. “You inhabited every thought I had, willing or not. I couldn’t escape from you, even if you weren’t physically here with me.

“No matter what I did, you were still there, looming within me, within my head. Even in my dreams, you were there. Maybe it was just my subconscious trying to make up for what I lacked when you’re not around. I’ve been virtually alone for decades now. I was lonely. I still am lonely. When you were here, I got a break from that. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, I love my students, I’m lucky to have what I have and to lead the life I do, but it’s not enough. I dreaded waking up in the morning. But then you showed up, and that changed.

“That’s not all you are to me, though. I didn’t want just a way to fill the void. You’re more than that to me. There’s something about you that’s special, that made me break down my walls, that let me care about someone for the first time in longer than I care to remember. I want you, Irene.”

The room grows silent, Seulgi waiting for a reply, unable to look away from Irene’s face, looking for any hint that she may return even just the slightest bit of what Seulgi had just said to her. She sees a look of sadness before her, with maybe a twinge of guilt behind it, too. She’s hoping that that look is an indication that what she said got through to Irene, but she knows it’s just wishful thinking.

Irene finally looks up from the floor, and says, “I…I have to go, Seulgi. I’m sorry.”

She leaves, just as quickly as she came, leaving Seulgi alone once again. Seulgi stays there, hand against the wall, as if Irene hadn’t yet left her grasp. She eventually moves her hand away, and slides down against the wall, sitting, admitting her defeat. 

She puts her head in her hands, and lets out a light sob. She feels stupid. Stupid for trying to stop Irene, stupid for telling her how she feels, stupid for crying about the inevitable outcome. Seulgi wishes she wasn’t so hopeful about Irene. In the back of her head, she knew what would happen, but she let her mind get the better of her. She convinced herself that what she’d hoped for wasn’t as outlandish as it was in reality. Irene was heartless, Seulgi thought. She knew that. Yet she chose to ignore it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: posephdameron


	4. at peace

Seulgi couldn’t bring herself to get up from the spot she sunk into against the wall. She didn’t know what one was supposed to do when their assassin up and leaves right after they confess their feelings to them. Seulgi has been alive for centuries, yet this was uncharted territory for her. This would be uncharted for just about anyone, Seulgi thought to herself, letting out a light laugh, able to see some of the absurdity in her current situation.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. She was stuck somewhere between wanting Irene to be back within her grasp and never wanting to see her again. The latter of which wasn’t out of any ill will towards Irene; deep down Seulgi understood why Irene did the things she did. Seulgi just wasn’t sure if she could handle facing her again. She laid her heart out for Irene, and received no inclination that Irene reciprocated any sort of what she had just put out before her.

Seulgi often felt alone, as she had expressed to Irene, but never more so than in that moment. The warm, fuzzy feeling Irene elicited had escaped from her, just as it had during Irene’s extended absence. It had been warmer than it ever had been before mere moments before, and now she was cold through and through. 

She’d never much questioned that warmth, simply going along with it whenever it came around, knowing it meant Irene was near. She assumed it was something that just happened with vampires, despite never having felt it before. There wasn’t exactly a handbook or anything, though, about what does or doesn’t happen when you’re a vampire, so she wrote it off pretty easily, giving it little to no thought. But, now that she really sat and thought about it, it hadn’t been there the first couple times Irene came around. 

She realized then that maybe it wasn’t a result of anything other than her feelings towards the other woman. Some intuition played a part in it, of course, but the root of it all was Irene, and how she felt around her. This sudden realization made Seulgi feel all that much worse, burying her head in her hands once more, letting it all sink it. Not just her realization that her feelings were even deeper, if that was at all possible, and that they’d been there for longer than she had known, but the night itself. It felt like a whirlwind, and she couldn’t quite wrap her head around all that had just gone on.

She sat for a moment longer, then got up and made her way to her bedroom. Seulgi still had a job, still had responsibilities. She couldn’t let this get in the way of that. She needed the time she took to stew in her feelings, to let herself wallow for a while. But, it was late, now, and she would need sleep if she was gonna get through the next day. 

Sleep came easier to her than she had anticipated, exhausted from the night’s events. Once she was deeply and fully asleep, that’s when Irene decided to make her entrance. She never really left, staying on the opposite side of the front door during Seulgi’s self-pity session. Irene didn’t want to hurt Seulgi, emotionally at least. She thought it was funny, she’d spent all this time trying to kill Seulgi and now she was worried about hurting her feelings.

Irene couldn’t handle it, being there, with Seulgi, while she shared what she had with her. Irene was a little more than emotionally stunted, to say the least. She didn’t know how to say anything to Seulgi after something like that, whether it be reciprocation or rejection. She felt lost. So she took the easy way out. Nothing meaningful would have been able to come from her, she thought, so best if she just cut both their losses and make a run for it. 

As soon as she stepped out of that door, she realized the mistake she’d made. It didn’t help when she heard Seulgi crying. She wanted to open that door right back up and make it better for Seulgi, somehow. Irene didn’t know how to take her pain away, though. She sunk down, just as Seulgi had on the opposite side from her. 

Irene always knew what to do, always had a plan, an escape route. But, this time, she didn’t. She was clueless. She didn’t know how to fix the situation, how to make Seulgi feel better, but she couldn’t just leave as she normally would. The pull she felt towards Seulgi was unprecedented for her. Irene wasn’t one to get attached to anyone, and it had been that way most of her life. It was perplexing to her, frustrating almost. 

Irene was able to lead her life, alone, successful, unfeeling, until this one vampire in particular comes along. Everything she was, everything she had been and had known, shifted. The first thing to go was her usual success, Seulgi skillfully dodging every attempt at her life. A challenge was welcome here and there, but Seulgi went beyond just a challenge. Irene felt like a fraud, like everything she’d worked for had gone down the drain just because of this one vampire. The one thing she ever really felt was anger, and this certainly exacerbated that feeling.

The next to make its departure was her being alone. Irene wouldn’t quite call it loneliness, just simply being alone. She didn’t mind it much, she thought it best if she were alone, nothing to lose. It was the most subtle transition out of it all, one not easy to realize unless it had a lot of thought put into it. Yet as someone who’d been alone as long as she had, similar to Seulgi but on a smaller scale, she was able to see it eventually. Every person, every vampire that Irene spent her time around was fleeting, never getting comfortable for too long before they left, or were dead. Although she and Seulgi weren’t exactly sitting down and chatting, seeing the same face, feeling a familiar presence day in and day out was still different than what she had been used to. 

Irene’s final shift was the hardest to go through. She didn’t think that could be possible, after the difficulties Seulgi brought to her job and failing at the standard she held herself to. Irene thought that was the worst, hardest thing she would have to endure. Until she realized that her frustrations towards Seulgi were turning into something else. Something that wasn’t just anger and hatred, something she wasn’t accustomed to feeling. 

She wouldn’t have minded staying in her no-feeling comfort zone, and she tried to. Once she actually recognized that her anger was sprouting into more, any emotion she felt would be shut down the moment she felt it, never letting it rise to the surface. Eventually, it became too much for even her to handle, having no choice but to let herself feel it. 

She first realized it that night she left when Seulgi offered her something to drink. That night was different than most. Less hostile, on both of their parts. Seeing Seulgi with her guard down, and keeping it down even once Irene was there with her, made her feel something that was unusual to her. It was the first time she ever felt bad for doing what she’d been doing to Seulgi. She’d essentially been terrorizing her for about three months prior to that night, never giving a second thought to what Seulgi may have going on in her own life, or even that she had a life at all.

Irene knew so little about Seulgi, and she never saw that as a problem. Seulgi was nothing more than a target to her, just another box to check off at the end of the day. She kept a line between church and state, and Seulgi ended up erasing that line for her. Irene wanted to stay when Seulgi offered her a drink, she really did, and that was the problem. Irene couldn’t let herself stay. It was impossible for her to let her guard down and just exist around someone without trying to kill them in the process. She saw no other way than to run, just as she had tonight.

She stayed away from Seulgi because of what she felt for her. Irene couldn’t handle Seulgi, and what being around her meant. What bothered Irene most during her time away from her was that she actually missed Seulgi. It made her feel ridiculous, much as Seulgi had felt about her own feelings toward Irene. 

Irene’s other targets had taken a back burner since she began on her quest to take Seulgi down. She still achieved what she’d intended to, but with less diligence and care than she usually had. Seulgi clouded her mind, at first just because she wanted nothing more than for Seulgi to be dead and gone, another stepping stone on Irene’s path. But, once she left Seulgi, her mind was clouded with more. Aside from missing the other woman, she began to feel bad about her escapades. Seulgi made her wonder about the lives of the others she was killing. Maybe they were like Seulgi, too. Maybe they weren’t just lifeless monsters like she’d been made to believe. 

Eventually, she couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t keep her killing streak up any longer. Her employers kept tabs on her, of course, but Irene had been such a renowned figure that they trusted her more than they would another assassin. They gave her more freedom, which made it easier for her to break away from them. There was still danger in it, and she had to be careful about what her next moves would be, but, ultimately, she needed this for herself, for Seulgi.

Irene wasn’t sure, exactly, what her plan was. She knew she wanted to go to Seulgi, but she didn’t know what it was going to accomplish. Irene wasn’t one to vocalize her feelings, good or bad. She was reserved, kept to herself no matter what. She knew, though, that she wouldn’t be able to rest unless she went to Seulgi.

She almost didn’t go in, not sure if she could face Seulgi again. She waiting outside for a while, weighing her options, before deciding she had no other options left. Irene had thrown away her job, the life she knew, potentially her life as a whole if she was found out. All she had left was Seulgi. 

Irene was disappointed by Seulgi’s initial lack of conversation towards her. It was unlike Seulgi, making Irene panic a bit inside, wondering if this was all a big mistake. Rather than prolong the silence, she tried to make her exit. She seemed nonchalant about it, but deep down was terrified of leaving the one thing she had left in her barren life. 

When Seulgi finally asked her that question, “Why?” it felt like Irene came up for air again. Irene’s decision making skills were less than stellar when it came to anything but the best way to kill someone. She thought it best to keep at least some of her walls up, to act like she still couldn’t care less about Seulgi or the time they’d been apart from each other. 

Irene began to feel overwhelmed again, just as she had before, leading her to leave Seulgi for as long as she had. She wanted out, she wanted to hit that easy button once again. A part of her wanted to stay, for Seulgi, for a chance at another, maybe better life. But, it all felt like it was too much. 

She was glad Seulgi didn’t let her leave at first. Seulgi did need to say what she said, even if Irene felt awful during her entire confession. She felt like a coward, she left Seulgi here, alone, just because of the same feelings that Seulgi herself had felt, too, and she had tried to leave again. She heard Seulgi out, but still felt like she was being drowned, by her feelings, by Seulgi. 

Irene had intended to leave, this time for good, but she got about two steps before she realized that the true mistake she made wasn’t coming here in the first place, but was her leaving, again and again. She didn’t feel brave enough, yet, to open that door and break the two’s distance, so she sat, waiting until she felt it would be okay, for both her and Seulgi, to go back inside. 

Her plan was still unknown to her, unsure of how to fix what she’d just done to Seulgi. This was all new to Irene, not just feeling, but having someone else there, someone who is affected by her choices and her own feelings. She wanted time to think about it, but couldn’t bear leaving Seulgi. As soon as she knew Seulgi was fast asleep, she came inside, not to wake her, but just to be near her while she tried to figure out what was best to do. 

She didn’t want to disturb her, knowing she was deserving of the sleep she was currently getting, so she slunk down through Seulgi’s bedroom window, not making a single noise. Irene looked at the woman before her for a little while, now feeling ridiculous for a different reason than she had. Now it wasn’t derived from feeling like she shouldn’t feel anything towards her, but instead feeling stupid for ever denying it, and for ever leaving her.

Standing there and staring at her, though, felt rather creepy, so she made her way outside of Seulgi’s bedroom, slowly and quietly shutting the door behind her, and sitting against the wall beside it. She racked her brain for what she could do to make it better, to not mess up the potential she and Seulgi had. Irene sat there for a few hours, at the least, still unsure, still afraid. She fought the sleep that was trying to come to her, but it was of no use. She fell asleep, still sitting in the same position she’d been in since she first sat down. 

Seulgi woke up bright and early that morning, needing to get a shower in before her morning class. She was still exhausted, feeling almost hungover. The last thing she expected to see when she opened her door was Irene, and yet, there she was, still asleep. Seulgi jumped, at first, not realizing she was asleep and harmless.

She’d never seen Irene look so innocent and helpless. A small smile formed on her face, her heart warmed by the smaller woman before her. She didn’t see the point in waking Irene up, she looked like she needed the sleep she was getting at the moment. Instead, Seulgi grabbed a blanket from her bed and brought it out for Irene, lightly draping it over her, trying her best to be gentle so as not to wake her. 

Seulgi had to go to work, she had no choice, but she didn’t want Irene to get the wrong impression and leave. Her solution was a small sticky note, which read, “I’ll be at work till 4, feel free to make yourself at home. - Seulgi :]” She stuck the note on Irene’s knee, so she’d have no way of missing it when she finally woke up. 

When Seulgi left for work, she felt happier than she had in a long time. Sure, nothing had quite happened yet, but Irene’s gesture meant more to her than Irene would ever know. Despite Irene initially leaving hurt Seulgi, knowing that she had someone that was willing to wait outside her door for her for so long that she fell asleep, similar to a small puppy, was a breath of fresh air for Seulgi. The warmth returned within her as soon as she saw Irene again, and it stayed with her throughout the day, even without Irene’s physical presence there with her. 

Once Irene woke up, she was more than confused. She’d slept longer than she had in months, and felt incredibly out of it. She didn’t even remember falling asleep, and her confusion only grew when she found herself to be covered in a blanket and note that were certainly not there when she fell asleep. Upon reading the note, a genuine smile appeared, which was an unusual feat for Irene. 

Irene did as Seulgi’s note had instructed and tried her best to make herself comfortable in the other’s home. She never took the blanket off, only wrapping herself up in it and walking around Seulgi’s lofty house aimlessly. It was easier to make herself at home than she had expected it to be, finding herself comforted by Seulgi’s home and familiar smell alone. 

Seulgi returned at the time she had told Irene, and found Irene bundled up in the blanket on Seulgi’s couch, watching something on the television on the wall across from her and eating Seulgi’s leftovers. Irene hadn’t heard Seulgi as she came in, the sound coming from the show she was engrossed in drowning out any other noise, so she continued as she had before, none the wiser. Seulgi stared at Irene, a smile unable to be wiped off from her face as she set her stuff down on her kitchen counter.

She made her way over to the couch, Irene still paying her undivided attention to the cheesy drama playing. Seulgi sat down beside Irene, saying nothing more than a quiet, “Hey,” as Irene looked over at her, finally noticing her presence. Neither of them felt much of a need to say anything, the moment seemed perfect to them both without it. Irene leaned her head down onto Seulgi’s shoulder, and Seulgi placed a light kiss on the top of her head. The two continued in silence, watching the show before them, finally feeling at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the final chapter But! i am planning a fluffy one shot and a sequel so This Is Not Truly The End hehe. thank you to everyone who has read esp those who have left kudos and comments :D also thank you to chay and lars who have been My Biggest Supporters and have helped me along the way :]  
> twitter: posephdameron


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